Exercise oncology and translational research: effects of supervised aerobic exercise on tumorigenic potentials of triple-negative breast cancer cells

Purpose: Translational research offers the opportunity to evaluate the exercise effects on cancer cell tumorigenic capacity and to detect some physiological predictors. Our previous results showed that sera obtained from breast cancer survivors (BCS), involved in a 12-week exercise training and educational counseling, lowered the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cell tumorigenic ability. Moreover, statistical analyses found IGF-1 as the only predictor. The aim of this study was to evaluate the differences between exercise intensities on TNBC tumorigenic capacity. Methods: 20 BCS performed two supervised aerobic exercise sessions, one at moderate and one at vigorous intensity. Sera were sampled at rest (T0), immediately after (T1), and 3 and 24 hours after the exercise sessions (T2 and T3, respectively), and were used to stimulate TNBC cells to form 3D colonies in semi-solid medium. Results: Results revealed that the exercise sessions proposed led to a reduced cancer cell tumorigenic capacity; particularly, the lowest value was obtained with the T2 sera, in both moderate and vigorous intensity sessions (-14.3±6.7% and -9.4±4.6% versus T0 sera, respectively). Interestingly, the results did not show significant differences between the two exercise intensities. Conclusions: Results suggest the potential of aerobic exercise in controlling tumor progression and recurrence risk. Furthermore, the moderate-intensity session results allow us to hypothesize that beneficial effects can also be obtained without performing sessions at vigorous intensity, which could be hard to be reached by BCS. The modulation of physio/metabolic parameters induced by the exercise sessions could help to identify TNBC recurrence prevention predictors.